Volleyballers return with silver

It may not have been gold, but the silver medal brought back from El Salvador by Belize’s National Volleyball Team in the Central American Senior Championships, looks pretty good. Today News Five caught up with the team’s high flying opposite hitter Joseph Enriquez.

Joseph Enriquez, Belize National Volleyball Team

“On the first night of competition we played Costa Rica and they beat us three sets to two. Next we were followed by Guatemala and we beat them in three straight sets. After Guatemala, we had to go through Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. We played Honduras in the semi-finals match because if we had lost, we would have played for bronze instead, but we beat them and play Costa Rica in the gold medal match. We lost in three sets because they played a much better game and the game plan that they used against us in the second tournament was completely different from what we faced before. But the team on a whole has been together for five years now, we started in 1995. That’s not really very long in volleyball tournaments because most of the teams that we played against have been together for about ten to twelve years because they start off in a junior league and they move up to senior and you just automatically go up with your team, so some teams have been together for a long time.”

“On a side note we did very well because in the female division, Miss Shelmadine Cacho was awarded the Best Blocker of the tournament. So once again, Belize has stepped up big time and we are no longer the underdogs for everyone to walk on. They are have to think about us when they are going into the games.”

Enriquez won awards as Most Valuable Player and Best Attacker for the tournament.